


But Tell It Slant

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [27]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, Colonel of Truth (Major Dad)."Rodney discovers John hasn't been as honest with him as he thought.





	But Tell It Slant

“Hey, John, did you find that power source -?” Rodney began, trotting down the steps into the gate room.

John glanced at him and then looked away. Major Lorne had a hand on John’s tac vest and was practically dragging John up the steps.

“Not right now, Doc,” he said sharply, the same tone he’d taken with Rodney at the beginning of his tenure on Atlantis.

Rodney frowned. “But Major -”

“I said not now,” Lorne snapped.

Rodney protested, “John, you can’t let him -”

John pressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing, and when Lorne pushed past Rodney, John followed him.

Lorne headed straight for the transporter, barking into his radio about getting a medical team to his quarters. When Captain Toriel approached with a question for John, Lorne snapped at him too, and then he and John were in the transporter and gone.

Rodney, furious, stabbed the button for the transporter. John was his teammate, and Rodney had legitimate inquiries into the results of the most recent offworld mission. Lorne had a reputation of not always getting along with the scientists, but he and Rodney had been doing better, or so Rodney thought. Sometimes Lorne used his first name.

When the transporter doors opened, Rodney stepped in, pressed the coordinates for the military residential atrium. Why was Lorne taking John to his quarters and not John’s? And why had John let Lorne treat him like that?

Rodney stormed over to Lorne’s door and swiped a hand over the door mechanism, but the light flared red and the door didn’t open.

Rodney sighed and activated the doorbell.

The door still didn’t open.

Rodney tapped his radio. “Lorne, let me in to see John.”

“Not now, Doc.”

“Yes, now.”

_ “No.” _

“John’s not hurt. I need to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

That hurt. Who the hell was Lorne to be speaking for John anyway? Rodney fished in his pocket, came up with his multi tool, wrenched the panel off the door control, rearranged some crystals, and forced the door open.

“John,” he said, “I need to talk to you about -”

He came up short when he saw John sitting on the edge of Lorne’s bed. He’d shed his tac vest and weapons, and Lorne had shed his gear as well. For some reason, John looked small and vulnerable with Lorne looming over him, one hand on his chin forcing his head up, peering into his eyes while he spoke rapidly on his radio.

“What are you doing to him?” Rodney demanded.

Lorne spun around. “Hang on, Carson. Doc, get out. Now.”

Rodney stormed closer. “No. Get your hands off my teammate.”

Lorne rolled his eyes. “It’s an emergency, and I’m trying to handle it. You need to leave until he’s been cleared by medical.”

“If John were in serious medical danger he’d have gone straight to the infirmary or a containment team would have met him at the gate,” Rodney said. He addressed John. “What’s going on?”

“I was force-fed truth serum and I can’t lie,” John said.

Rodney blinked. “What?” He looked at Lorne, whose expression was grim.

“You have to go, Doc,” Lorne said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Rodney shook him off. “No. I get why you wouldn’t want to leave him on an alien planet in this state, because he’s a security risk, but we’re teammates and best friends. We don’t have any real secrets, right, John?”

“Wrong.”

Rodney stared at him.

John avoided his gaze, pale and unhappy.

“You have secrets from me?” Rodney asked.

“Yes.”

“The truth serum is also a speech disinhibitor, so if you would stop talking to him and back off for a moment,” Lorne started, but Rodney gazed at John, confused and feeling hurt creep into him all over again.

“What secrets could you possibly have that you don’t mind Lorne knowing but that you would want to keep from me?” he asked.

“Secrets about you,” John said, and bit his lip, turned his face away, closed his eyes.

“What about me?” Rodney asked.

John shook his head, expression pained.

“John, we are friends, right?”

John nodded tightly, still turned away from him, eyes still closed.

“You like me, right?”

John nodded again, more vigorously, eyes squeezed shut.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Doc, don’t,” Lorne said.

“John,” Rodney said, “tell me the truth.”

John choked out, “I’m in love with you.”

Rodney rocked back on his heels. He hadn’t expected that. Had hoped for it often, sure, but hadn’t expected to hear it, not in a million years. He’d been afraid that the truth was that John pitied him or felt sorry for him or barely tolerated him, not -

Rodney looked at Lorne. “You knew?”

Lorne’s expression was grim. “Who do you think makes sure the KP Marines always set aside a brownie for you on the nights you don’t make it to the mess hall?”

“But...John always brings me my extra-special brownie.”

Lorne said nothing, jaw tight.

Rodney turned to John. “Why did you never tell me?”

“What’s the point? You’ve always panted after Carter and hot Athosian babes and that archaeologist on Dagan and Katie Brown in botany.” John opened his eyes and looked up at Rodney, agonized. “And if anyone else found out, they’d send me away, I’d be gone, out of the Air Force, stripped of my clearance, I’d never see you again -” He shook his head and buried his face in his hands.

“You told Lorne.”

“He didn’t tell me a thing,” Lorne said. “I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. But I do have eyes.”

“And you’ve been...enabling him.”

“He’s the best damn commanding officer I’ve ever had. And his continued well-being is key to our survival.”

John said, voice hollow, “Go. We’ll talk after the drugs have cleared my system.”

“Major,” Carson said, hurrying into the room. “You stopped answering my radio calls - oh.” He came up short when he saw Rodney. He looked at John, then back at Rodney. “Rodney knows.”

Rodney threw his hands up. “Did everyone know but me?”

Lorne waved a hand at his door, and it slid shut, locked once more.

“Rodney, I need you to step out while I take care of Colonel Sheppard,” Carson said, opening his black medical bag.

“No.” Rodney pushed past him, knelt down in front of John. “Hey, look at me.”

John met his gaze with the kind of steely resolve he usually had when facing down a Wraith.

“I’m in love with you too,” Rodney said.

John frowned. “But - Carter and Katie -”

“I’m bi, you’re in the American Armed Forces, and I was never one to really linger on wanting what I could never have.”

John said, “I want to kiss you right now.”

Lorne turned pink.

Carson pointedly looked away.

“I want to kiss you too, but I’d rather do it when you’re yourself,” Rodney said. “So I’ll go, let Carson take care of you. And we will talk later, okay?”

John nodded.

Rodney stood up, clapped Lorne on the shoulder. “Thanks for protecting him.” He nodded at Carson. “Do your best.”

And then he left the room.

Later, when John found him, little talking happened, but their kisses and touches spoke volumes.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Emily Dickinson Poem _Tell All the Truth_.
> 
> Prompt was originally filled 4/13/18 but for whatever reason I forgot to post this on here.


End file.
